During the two centuries which had passed since the settlement of the first
English colonies on the Atlantic coast, the Indians had been gradually forced
back into the interior of the country. Within a few years after the close
of the War of 1812, a number of new states were admitted to the Union. Certain
Indian tribes still occupied parts of these states as well as parts of several
of the original thirteen states. The lands which were owned and occupied
by these Indians were called reservations. The Indians were not citizens
of the states in which they lived and they were not subject to state laws.
They did not pay taxes on their land or other property. There were many white
people who wanted the Indian lands. Lawless white men lurked around the Indian
reservations, selling whiskey to the Indians, gambling with them and stealing
from them. While such conditions prevailed, it was only natural that there
should be feelings of suspicion, jealousy and hatred between some of the
people of the two races. So, some of the white people wanted the Indians
moved away to the west where they would be out of the way, in order that
their lands might be settled by white farmers and planters. Other white people,
who were real friends of the Indians, wanted to see the people of these tribes
moved to new reservations west of the Mississippi, in order to get them away
from the unpleasant surroundings in which they were then situated. Most of
the Indians did not want to move. They were attached to the land where their
people had lived for hundreds of years and by many ties and the thought of
leaving grieved them. But the will and the wishes of the Indians were not
consulted. Instead, by coaxing and persuading and threatening, treaties or
agreements which proved for the removal of these tribes to new reservations
west of the Mississippi were made and signed. Fraud and misrepresentation
were used in inducing the Indians to sign some of these treaties, but the
Indians were forced to abide by them.

The establishment of an Indian Territory had been proposed as early as 1820
and Congress finally passed an act, in 1830, providing that there should
be such a territory. In the meantime, a number of reservations had been assigned
to various tribes. These reservations were scattered over the country between
the Platte and Red rivers, west of Missouri and Arkansas. So, a large part
of the present states of Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma became known as the
Indian Territory and such it remained for twenty-five years.

The largest Indian tribes that were living east of the Mississippi River
were found in the southern states, the Cherokees, who lived in the mountainous
portions of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, the Creeks or
Muskogees, who lived in Georgia and Alabama, the Choctaws, who lived in Alabama
and Mississippi, and the Chickasaws, whose home was in Mississippi and Tennessee.
Reservations had been assigned to the Indians of the Choctaw and Creek tribes
and some of the people of these tribes began to move to the Indian Territory
as early as 1825. Many of the Cherokee people had previously moved west of
the Mississippi River and had settled in Arkansas, where they became known
as the Western Cherokees.

In 1828, the United States made a treaty with the Western Cherokees in which
they were assigned to a new reservation in the northeastern part of what
is now Oklahoma. Seven years later, in 1835, a treaty was made with part
of the main body of the Cherokee tribe, which was still living in their old
home country in the east, in which it was provided that the whole tribe should
be moved to the new reservation of the Western Cherokees. Because this treaty
was made by a few members of the tribe who were acting without authority,
the main body of the tribe refused to be bound by it, but the United States
insisted upon enforcing its terms and the Cherokee people were compelled
to leave their homes and move to the west, which they did in 1838 and 1839.
The main bodies of the Creek and Choctaw tribes had likewise been forced
to leave the lands where their fathers had lived since long before the white
men came and moved to their new reservations west of the Mississippi River.
In 1837, the people of the Chickasaw tribe sold their lands to the United
States and bought an interst in the Choctaw reservation to which they moved
soon afterward.

Most of the Indians of these tribes moved westward in caravans and wagon
trains and many of them came on steamboats which ascended the Arkansas and
Red rivers. They suffered great sorrow at being rudely torn from their old
homes. During the course of their westward journeys there was much sickness
among them. Hundreds died and were buried in unmarked graves along the roads
over which they were traveling. Because of this, the people of these tribes
were wont to speak of the roads over which they came into the Indian Territory
as the "Trail of Tears". Many died of sheer homesickness, even after they
had arrived at the end of their journey.